I am a music guy, not much on home theater. Running an Outlaw 1050 for power, a pair of PSB Image B25 fronts. I need to know what sub woofer you would recommend for a room that is relatively small, tile floors. I am looking for quality bass to augment my PSB's. My budget is around 350.00

Thanks for your advice.

Cheers!

:2:

luvtolisten

05-20-2009, 05:32 PM

Hi Keywestguy and welcome! Nice receiver you have by the way.

I have the HSU STF-2, I have been happy with it, although it is said to be more musical, I use it for HT as well. It runs for $349,plus shipping.

http://www.hsuresearch.com/products/stf-2.html

Keep in mind this is a down firing subwoofer, you may need to put a throw rug under it on tile floors, or maybe not. I don't run PSB's but I'm sure someone who does, may have a better recommendation for you, but this sub will blend well with most speakers. I have run Paradigm's, Wharfedales, AV 123 XL's , BIC 62's, and Infinity Beta 20's with them and all blended well. If you're not concerned about HT, then I'd go with an 8 inch sub and save some $. This is a nice little sub.(Energy EWS-8) I have this one too, and it also blends well, very close to the HSU,(for music) and a lot less expensive.

My choice would be the Mirage as it is an 8" with 400watts peak. Which would be fine for a small room. The Energy would be a good choice if you ever plan on using it in a larger room.

pixelthis

05-20-2009, 11:55 PM

I am a music guy, not much on home theater. Running an Outlaw 1050 for power, a pair of PSB Image B25 fronts. I need to know what sub woofer you would recommend for a room that is relatively small, tile floors. I am looking for quality bass to augment my PSB's. My budget is around 350.00

Thanks for your advice.

Cheers!

:2:

Nothing.
A sub is great for HT, but if its music you crave a pair of decent speakers with decent bass is all you need.
I have a Velodyne 8" myself, an exelent sub I bought used, when the starship Enterprize flies over my head it flies over my head.
But I turn it off for music.
But that is just a personal bias. If you have small speakers of course you will need a sub.
I have found that B&W has a very musical sub.
But for accuracy I get by on my 602 s2's , which is what I prefer for music.:1:

If you have a small room and primarily listen to music, I would not recommend a ported subwoofer because of the low end room gain that you get from small rooms. Most subs on the market are ported because of their greater efficiency and higher maximum output. They work fine in larger rooms, but can be problematic in smaller ones.

You should look into sealed subs, because their low end rolloff better approximates the boundary gain. Also, sealed subs will generally provide more low end extension, which is really all you want given that you already use high quality bookshelf speakers. Sealed subs include the Dayton kits (highly recommended on this site), the Rocket subs, the Martin Logan Dynamo, and other entry level sealed subs from B&W, Atlantic Technology, and REL. The 10" Dayton Titanic kit (http://www.parts-express.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?Partnumber=300-760) will run you about $400. All the other options start around $600.

But, regardless of which sub you opt for, your room will very likely create a lot of severe peaks and nulls, and to that end I highly recommend that you also use a parametric equalizer to even out the response curve. The smaller the room, the more problematic these peaks will be.

My room is about 13' x 18', basically a medium sized room, but out of the box my subwoofer was unlistenable. Using a $99 Behringer Feedback Destroyer as a subwoofer EQ, I was able to dial down a +14 db peak. Those peaks cause boominess, which makes you set the subwoofer level too low, which in turn makes the bass sound anemic overall until those peaks hit. Dialing down the peaks allows you to more accurately set the bass level, and that will give you smoother and fuller sounding bass. Ideally, you want the sub to disappear and simply augment the lowest of the lows. IMO, in a small room that's only possible if you equalize the sub.

Search some of the previous threads on the Behringer Feedback Destroyer. Everyone on this board who owns one will tell you how big a difference a parametric EQ can make with a subwoofer.